New York Rangers-Islanders Part 1: A disheartening 4-3 loss on a last minute goal

This one hurt. The New York Rangers played hard and totally dominated the Islanders in the third period, but lost on the only shot on goal by the Isles in the period.

This was the best game played by the New York Rangers in almost two weeks.  Victimized yet again by ill-timed penalties, they lost on an Islander goal  with a minute and a half left.  What hurt even more is that in the third period they held the Islanders without a shot until the winning goal.

There was bad blood from the get go in this game. Cody McLeod and Matt Martin almost squared off after the opening faceoff,  then Ross Johnston tried to take on Cody McLeod only McLeod wanted no part of it.  When Johston dropped his glove and McLeod skated away, the Islander too an early unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. This was just desserts for Johnston who was the Islander who goaded McLeod into the fight that resulted in a broken hand for the Ranger enforcer.

The Rangers cashed in 1:20 into the power play and Ryan Strome put one into a wide open net on a feed from Jimmy Vesey.

It was the second power play unit of Strome, Vesey and Chytil that made the play.

As usual, the lead didn’t last long.  Matt Barzal got past the defense for a  breakaway and tucked a backhand shot under Lundqvist’s legs.  The Rangers’ nemesis took advantage of a bad change to streak into the zone less than a minute after Strome’s goal.

Six minutes later, the actioned heated up when Matt Martin took on McLeod in retaliation for a hard check McLeod threw at Casey Cizikas.

They threw a lot of punches, but not many connected and it became a hugging match.  20 seconds after the fight, Jimmy Vesey got called for tripping Anthony Beauvillier, negating a semi-breakaway by Vlad Namestnikov.   The penalty kill failed once again and Jordan Eberle scored on a wide open shot from the faceoff circle.  The puck appeared to deflect slightly off Neal Pionk and it went into the net under Lundqvist’s arm.

There was no more damage and the two teams exchanged chances.  The period ended with the Isles leading 2-1 and ahead in shots 10-8.

The Rangers came out in the second period and scored early.  Kevin Shattenkirk took a quick shot on a pass from Fredrik Claesson who was in deep.   I’ll say that again, Kevin Shattenkirk too a quick shot and put it past a screened Robin Lehner.  Tie game.

27 second later Marc Staal took a holding penalty (marginal) against Matt Barzal and sure enough, the Islanders took the lead again on the power play.  Nick Leddy took a slapshot from the blueline with Anders Lee providing a screen  and getting the deflection.

During the intermission Steve Valiquette did a detailed breakdown in defense of the Rangers’ penalty killers and the issue was the Rangers could never get to the puck, not the defensive  structure.  The Islanders held it in the Rangers’ zone for a full minute and a half and the defenders were exhausted when the goal was scored.

From that point it was a fairly evenly played period and the Rangers had to kill a Namestnikov hooking penalty.  The Rangers were outshot 9-5 in the second period, 19-13 for the game.

The third period was a completely different story.   They stormed the Islander zone and won all of the puck battles.

At the 3:03 mark of the third period, Strome was hooked on a break-in and the Rangers got their second power play.  After Robin Lehner made a great save on a one-timer by Zibanejad, Leo Komarov was called for dislodging the net.  The Rangers had a two man advantage for 44 seconds and they could do nothing on that advantage.  The Rangers’ inability to win a faceoff in the attack  zone just killed them.

The power play did give the Rangers some life and Lehner made a great glove save on Buchnevich after the penalty was over.  They kept up the offensive pressure and the Jesper Fast tied the game at 8:40 when he was able to get a puck mid-air and it bounced into the Islanders’ goal.

At this point the Rangers were outshooting the Isles 7-0.  The Rangers maintained the pressure and came close, but couldn’t get the go ahead goal.  They held the Isles to no shots on goal for the first 18:34. That’s when Josh Bailey got the Islanders first shot on net in the period and of course  it went in.  There was a breakdown in the Ranger zone when Bailey got past Neal Pionk, took the pass from Cal Clutterbuck and slammed it home.

So, the losing streak is now at five games.  The efforts are getting better, but the final result was the same.